


Rearranged: Scenes from a Marriage of Convenience (and Love)

by Jaded



Series: Royal Arranged Marriage [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, F/M, Mutual Pining, Outtakes, Prince Consort Cassian Andor, Princess Jyn Erso, Royalty, royal arranged marriage AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-13 06:52:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11179368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaded/pseuds/Jaded
Summary: Royal arranged marriage AU. Outtakes from an arranged rebelcaptain royal marriage; part of the"Rearranged"universe.





	1. A Knock on the Door

**Author's Note:**

> Random scenes that take place in between the larger story found in ["Rearranged"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10940568/chapters/24343716), which should be read first for context.

* * *

  _  
_

_Recap: After a tabloid publishes rumors that Cassian may be cheating on the crown princess, he writes Jyn a note to explain. Jyn, being Jyn, likes to deal with things more face-to-face._

 

* * *

 

 

Jyn makes herself known at his bedroom door with a soft rap of the knuckles against the solid hardwood. She arrives wrapped in her soft terry dressing gown, her brown hair tied in a messy braid, her feet bare, her toes unvarnished.

 

  
Cassian’s been ready for bed but unable to sleep for the past hour, and he’s suddenly glad for the insomnia.

 

  
“You could have just told me in person,” shes says, waving the unfolded pages of his apology. Her eyes are bright and clear, and he steps close enough to her that he can see the way the color shifts from green to hazel in the hazy light of his bedside lamp. He reaches for the letter that she seems to be offering, but when he grabs it between his fingers, she doesn’t let go.

 

“I’m glad you came here to tell me that,” he says, because he is, and their fingers brush. He blinks at her, surprised.

 

  
“Well,” she says, and her lips are still stained pink with color, berry kissed and parted just slightly. “Well.”

 

  
He dreams of her that night, of her pale shoulders shed of her dressing gown, of her lips on his skin, of his hands skimming across the flat of her belly and sliding down to grasp her by her hips. In his dream she smiles at him, coy and confident, and his heart races at the sound of her voice.

 

  
But it makes Cassian wake angry and confused and alone, and he lies in bed for longer than he should thinking about his wife—and the future queen—and about how they’ve only kissed once on the lips at their wedding, and how the rest of the times have consisted of pecks on the cheek for public consumption.

 

  
Once that was fine, once it was acceptable. It was part of their agreement, their marriage. But he sits up, swallows hard, and thinks about the touch of her hand and the smile on her face and how it isn’t fine anymore, not for him, except that it’s still part of their agreement, part of their marriage, and he doesn’t know what to do next if he can do anything at all.

 


	2. Stormy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn's had Stormy, her chow hound, since she was a girl. A fierce and loyal dog, Stormy is reluctant to like anyone but the crown princess. So when her dog takes an instant liking to Cassian shortly after her marriage, Jyn is perplexed, but soon catches on to what her dog knew from the start.

Jyn’s devoted chow hound, Stormy, loves her and almost nobody else. The fierce little dog growls at sweet Bodhi, eyes her father with suspicious distance, and keeps a cool distance from her mother. So when she and Cassian are first married, Jyn expects Stormy to outright hate her new husband, if only out of loyalty to her. But Stormy betrays Jyn, and on Day Two of their marriage, and she finds her pup curled at Cassian’s side in the library as he reads a book and absently pets her. On Day 5, Jyn finds Stormy whining at Cassian’s bedroom door, trying to get in, and has to physically lift her dog with her arms to deposit Stormy into her room for the night.

 

Jyn wants to know if Cassian has been plying her dog with sausages as a bribe, but Stormy’s never been that easy to win over. And at first, Jyn is flummoxed by the whole situation, but as the first year of their marriage passes and she gets to know her husband in specifics instead of the abstract, Jyn realizes this: her dog knew what a good man he was before she did and recognized in him the fierce loyalty the little dog had in himself.

 

“He’s a good little guard dog,” Cassian murmurs sleepily into her crown of hair when Jyn finally catches up to what Stormy knew from the start. Stormy is in the hallway between their rooms, growling at something or someone.

 

Jyn burrows herself deeper into his blankets and curls closer to his chest, humming in agreement as her hands slide down his naked chest and then lower and lower in a little, very unprincess-like tease. Cassian gasps a little in surprise and pleasure and Jyn turns her eyes up to look at his face when he says her name. She’s in love with hearing him say it now, in how the single syllable falls from his lips in all his different tones; how it sounds first thing in the morning when they wake together; how it sounds at night when he undresses her piece by piece as their bodies slide together.

 

“We’ll have to get up soon,” she finally says, regretfully. “Duty always calls.”

 

Cassian runs his finger along her jaw and lets his hand rest in her cheek. Stormy growls again, louder, before barking, and this time they both can hear Kay’s angry and ultimately ineffectual protests through the bedroom door. 

 

“Someone get this dog out of here! I need to wake his highness.”

 

Cassian chuckles and kisses Jyn’s lips. She sighs, eyes still closed. “I think we can take a few extra minutes, don’t you think?”

 

“He’s such a good dog,” Jyn smirks, rolling on top of him and trapping him very willingly between her legs. “What do you want to do with those extra minutes?“

 

He smiles at her, a glint in his eye, and a pang of regret washes over her for the year she let pass without knowing him like this. But the feeling doesn’t last long. Cassian purses his lips as she leans down toward him, and he says to her, “Oh, I think we have the same thing in mind.”


	3. Sculpted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She wanted his hands to roam around her body the way an artist's did when he sculpted."

In finishing school, Jyn had opted for sculpture and ceramics over water colors or the painting of fine china–she had a heavy hand and did not excel at delicate work. Her instructor had looked so pained when she presented to him he first canvas and seemed relieved when her highness had arranged through her private secretary to switch her art course. And though no proficient, Jyn proved to have at least a good eye and an instinct for curve of a vase or the way the thigh muscle stretched and moved on the human form.

 

  
And the way she had touched that clay, the way it had yielded to her hands, was how she wanted Cassian–her husband (how new and novel and wonderful it felt now to think of him this way and to want it and him the way she did)–to touch her now. But finishing school had tamed much of her instinctual wildness, and she felt the appropriate amount of embarrassment now at wanting to ask him for this because of what had been drilled into her from eight to eighteen. 

 

  
They’d stayed in bed most of the morning, pushing the heavy curtains together as much as they could to keep out the sun and the duties that lay ahead for them both. Curled up, they had talked and kissed, laughing and breathless with the discovery that they had for this chance to redo the first blush of love. 

 

  
He knelt before her now though, her naked legs bracketing him, and he was unable to hide the adoration in his face and this new turn in their marriage. He reached out and touched his face, rubbing the scruff of his beard in her hands and relishing how tactile they could now be with one another.

 

  
Cassian leaned into her hand, kissing her palm, but it only made her want him more, and she felt the ache of desire between her legs. 

 

  
“They’ll call us for breakfast soon,” she said at last. “Soft-boiled eggs and toast. Marmalade I suppose, and of course tea.”

 

  
“Of course,” he echoed. “What should we do until then?” he asked, playing along, since they were of like mind and had only one activity that currently interested them.

 

  
And since Jyn still could not ask, not with words at least, she slid to the ground to join him on the soft rug and used her sculptor’s hands to show him exactly what she wanted. Cassian, a quick study and a good student in his own right, caught on immediately. As his mouth found hers and drowned her in kisses, Jyn thought faintly that she would have to remind herself to tell him later that if this had been one of her sculpting classes, he would have passed with flying marks.

 


	4. Gestures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three times Cassian made less-than-platonic gestures that confounded the royal princess, Jyn Erso.

On her birthday, gifts from dignitaries and other royal families and politicians around the world come rolling in. There are gilded clocks and ceremonial pens encrusted in gems. She receives a decorative rooster with ruby eyes from an ambassador who once had been smitten with her; a bouquet of flowers from the son of a well-connected tradesman who had entertained hopes of marrying her before Cassian had been chosen instead. Jyn works her way through the gifts while Baze catalogs which items are from whom and readies his list for thank you notes that she will sign one he is done writing them.

 

One gift stands out though, amongst all the finery. She sees the box wrapped in brown paper, a white ribbon awkwardly placed on top. She opens it to reveal a collection of three books—leather-bound novels from her childhood of a series she had read over and over until her copies had fallen apart. “Who is this from?” she asks, turning the books over and over again, cracking them open to smell the new paper and ink. 

 

“Your husband,” Baze says.

 

“Did you tell him about these?” she asks, surprised.  “How did he know?” But the memory comes to her of chattering about these books with the head library once during a visit to the Royal Library at its grand re-opening three months earlier. Cassian had walked by her side, as her husband of course, quiet, but apparently, listening the whole time.

 

“He remembered,” she says to herself, running a finger down her spine, a confused smile pushing at her face. “How curious.”

 

+

 

When they arrive at official events, Cassian jumps out his side of the car to reach her side to help her out, even though there are people for that. “That’s a good idea,” Jyn tells him the third time it happens. “It’s good for optics.” He looks at her oddly and only gives her a crooked smile before they part ways to their separate bedrooms.

 

But something makes her linger a second longer, staring as his heavy oak door closed, but she can’t quite put her finger on it. Her thoughts are only broken up when Stormy nips at her heels circling her before running up to Cassian’s door and whining to be let in.

 

“Get into the room,” she frowns, picking up her chow hound and carrying him into her bedroom. “Don’t bother him tonight, you silly beast.”

 

+

 

They have a personal chef—of course they do, she’s a princess—but Mathilde is gone by 10pm when Jyn is craving chocolate cake. She’s determined though to have it and eat it too, even if Stormy looks at her skeptically while she rummages around in the kitchens looking for flour and sugar.

 

“What?” she says, and her pup barks and goes to sit on a kitchen rug.

 

A shadow appears in the door while she’s rifling through a cookbook looking for a recipe, and a soft cough alerts her to his presence—her husband’s presence.

 

“Need any help?” Cassian asks softly. He’s in his pajama and slippers, his expression sleepy. She won’t lie and say she hasn’t noticed his permanent case of “bedroom eyes”; he wears them now while he watches her work.  

 

“Did I wake you?” she asks instead of answering his question, and he shakes his head no. She can’t imagine she woke him up, but somehow he had known that she was in here.

 

“I couldn’t sleep,” he says. “I thought I’d come down for a cup of warm tea, see if that would help me sleep. I found you here.”

 

Jyn pulls a step ladder flush against the counter and tries to reach the baking powder on the top shelf, but even with the added height it’s just out of reach. She curses her lack of height and suddenly feels Cassian’s body warm and near.

 

“May I?” he asks, waiting for her to shift aside. “What do you need?”

 

“The baking soda,” she says pointing at a box on the top shelf.

 

Cassian squints, then spotting something on a more reachable shelf at his eye level, pulls out a box instead, arms just snaking around her every so little, and says, “Baking soda.”

 

“What was that then?” she asks, pointing up at a white canister, flustered.

 

“Baking powder.”

 

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

 

He smiles to himself and digs into a drawer, pulling out an apron and tying it around his waist. “Not quite,” he says. “May I help?”

 

“You bake?” she asks, surprised.

 

“Some,” Cassian replies.

 

“They wouldn’t teach me,” she says, then amends, “and I didn’t want to,” when he gives her almost the same skeptical look Stormy gave her. “But I wish I had now. But I should be able to follow a simple recipe, shouldn’t I?”

 

“This one?” he says, paging through the open book. “Were you going to make a cake for a wedding? This is . . . a recipe for a rather large cake.”

 

She unconsciously leans into him, the soft sleeve of his pajama shirt brushing against her bare arm. “Hmm,” she says. “Is it?”

 

Cassian coughs and says, “We can cut down the recipe. It’ll bake faster.”

 

“You’re a man of many surprising talents,” she says, leaning back and into the counter as he shrugs and digs around for a baking pan. Finding the ramekins Mathilde usually reserves for crème brulee, he pulls out two and directs her to grease and flour them.

 

Working together, though mostly Cassian working, they measure out flour and sugar and pre-heat the ovens. Jyn helps him to pour in the cocoa powder, and while she cleans down the counters after he’s done mixing and pouring the batter, cake baking away, she watches him pull out heavy cream and powdered sugar and a small vial of vanilla.

 

“Whipped cream,” he answers her unasked question.

 

“I love whipped cream,” she says.

 

He tilts his head and says, “I know.”

 

The warm cakes are delicious, and the aroma of chocolate lingers throughout the house. Cassian walks over and spoons fresh whipped cream on top of the cake. It melts rapidly, absorbing into the cake. Jyn is halfway through her first hot bite when she notices him undoing the apron and taking his leave.

 

“You’re not going to eat yours?” she asks, her voice edging unusually toward alarm—it’s just cake—she must just be tired. “And what about your tea?” she adds more calmly, remembering his initial reason for coming to the kitchen.

 

“I think baking did the trick of tiring me out,” he says, but he stays in the doorway, watching her finish off her first bite. “How is it?”

 

“Transcendent,” she says, grinning. “You should have at least one bite. Join me?”

 

Something flickers in his brown eyes, and he ambles over and joins her at the counter. “Alright,” he says slowly.

 

Elbows on the tabletop, he dips a spoon into the cake, steam rising out of the crumb, lips pursed to blow and cool it. She watches him thoughtfully as he finally takes a bite, the taste of bittersweet chocolate still on her tongue.

 


	5. Something Old, Something New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian and Jyn and some stolen royal kisses.

Jyn spends three straight nights in his room and begins to think of it as  _theirs_.

  
  
“You smell like home,” Cassian murmurs against the pale bare skin of her shoulder when the sun rises and light streams through the break in the curtains. “Like orange blossoms,” he says. “Like morning.”  
  


“The perfume,” she tells him, curling into his chest. “Your wedding gift to me.” She had splashed on the fragrance the night before at her bureau, giddy and flush with anticipation to sneak into his room once all the servants had quitted themselves for the evening. The glass bottle had been stuffed into a closet for months, half forgotten, and then she had half turned and looked across the hall to his open door where Cassian was walking around with a book in his hand, reading, until he noticed her looking and smiled. Then she had remembered.  
  


“I hope you didn’t bring the other gift,” he laughs, referring to the heirloom emerald-encrusted silver dagger he had also given to her just before their wedding; before she knew she’d fall in love with him.  
  


She leans into him, kisses his mouth long and tender, and pulls away for a moment to look at his face, at the long, dark lashes resting against his skin. “Just me,” she says, giving him a little wink.  
  


Cassian’s eyes flutter open. He caresses her cheek with the back of his hand, his expression open; one of wonder. It makes Jyn shiver to see it; to see that she is the reason for it. “I should have been waking up to you every morning of my life,” he says.

  
His fingers curl into her hair, and Jyn sighs. “Let’s make up for lost time then, shall we?” she says.

  
Cassian sucks in his cheeks and his gentle expression turns roguish. There is a sudden, unmistakable glint of mischief in his eye that makes something hot flare in her chest. “Yes, your highness,” he tells her, “we shall.”

  
+

  
They’ve been married for almost a year but the new discovery of their feelings for each other—or at least the admission of these feelings—is something new and exciting, and both Jyn and Cassian want as much time as they can have where this thing is just theirs and theirs alone. Their old normal was separate lives intersecting when duty called; their new normal, they’re still figuring out. They only know that it involves much more kissing, much more touching, and no one else’s interference while it can last.  
  


And so they find each other during daylight whenever they can, in “private meetings” and in dark corridors, the sound of her shoes echoing in the ancient stone stairwells of her castle home to find his soft soles waiting for her beneath a window for a long embrace and an even longer kiss that leaves her catching her breath a quarter of an hour later when she has to meet her mother for tea. Jyn sits down and pours herself a cup and can still feel the ghost of his hands sliding up her thigh and the soft and intimate way it felt to have his tongue trace her collarbone.  
  


“Dear?” her mother asks upon seeing the flush on her face. Jyn looks up. Lyra concernedly inquires if she needs to see the physician. She seems overheated. Jyn declines politely.  
  


+

  
Called away to the opening of the new royal hospital in the south of the country, Cassian has not seen Jyn—his wife—in two days, and his impatience to find her, to touch her, makes him take two steps at a time when he finally returns to their home. It’s midday but she’s nowhere to be found inside the palace, and he feels vexed enough that he snaps at Kay.  
  


“If you wish to avoid her, why are you so angry?”  
  


“I not trying to avoid her, Kay, I’m . . . ” but he doesn’t know what to say next, not yet ready to reveal his hand. He walks over to his window and stares out at the royal gardens, to the dark blue pond and the hedge maze below.

  
“You are behaving very particularly, sir. I imagine you are overtired. I can have the servants bring your meal to your room if you wish to get some rest.” Kay turns to take his leave and send out the orders, but then Cassian sees a figure in white skirts step to the entrance of the maze. She’s small and dark haired. She stops for a moment and turns to look at the palace—to look directly as this window as though she’s looking for someone there. She’s the most beautiful person Cassian has ever seen, and she’s his wife.  
  


“I’m going to take a walk,” Cassian tells Kay abruptly. “Some fresh air and a walk may be the cure to what ails me.”  
  


+

  
The sun is hot on his back and he is tired from a day of travels, but Cassian presses his way through the maze on a mission. He winds his way past walls of boxwood and yaupon holly, hands brushing against the vibrant green leaves of beech and hornbeam and yew, and finally hears signs of life—birds chirping and the sound of footsteps treading gravel.  
  


“Jyn?” he whispers, and the footsteps pause. Then, quickly as it stopped it starts and there’s a rumble of rock and the sound of a stick whipping through the air. Jyn flies at him, a walking stick raised about her head.  
  


“Jyn!” he cries, putting out his hand out to protect himself, and she skitters to a halt, doubling over laughing.  
  


“Cassian! Oh no!” She drops the stick and runs into his arms.

 

“Were you going to attack me?”  
  


“You could have been anyone. A princess has to protect herself!”

  
“From her husband, too?” he asks, allowing her to kiss him.

  
She feigns a pout and says, “You’re the most dangerous one of all.” She pulls at his collar to bring his face to hers. He has missed her, missed her terribly. He never knew he could miss another person like this.

  
Cassian pulls her up off her feet and spins her around, and she lets out a mewl of surprise, the sound like music. “Is that so? I heard the stories about you, but it is something else to see it in action.”

  
“You go away again like that and you’ll see my true wrath,” she says.

  
“Then I guess I must never leave your side again.”

  
Jyn smiles, self-satisfied. “Now you’re getting the idea.”

  
+

  
Jyn watches the horse slip; watches Cassian slip from the saddle and take flight, and her scream is caught in her throat. She’s on her feet and onto the field before she’s even half aware of what she is doing, pushing her way through a crowd of onlookers.  
  


Polo was a terrible idea, she thinks as her feet take her toward him, but she feels arms blocking her way and holding her back as medics run out to the field to tend to Cassian and the quartermaster corrals the prince’s chestnut stallion. There’s an eerie quiet on the field and Jyn feels her heart thudding out of her chest. She can’t see where he is, she can’t see if he’s hurt or bleeding or even conscious, and she curses the people who keep her away as though she is too delicate for blood.  
  


“Cassian!” she finally cries out, and the crowd sees her behind them and parts way for the princess to find her prince.  
  


Jyn sees him turn his head at the sound of her voice and relief floods her to see him conscious and clear-eyed. Cassian holds his wrist gingerly and winces as he’s lifted from the ground. He is carried over to a blanket, the white of his polo linens stained with dirt and the green of the grass. But he’s okay, if only a little bruised and battered.  
  


She rushes to his side, settling next to him as he is lain on his back.  
  


“Darling!” she breathes, clasping his face in her hands, the rough of his beard familiar and comforting underneath her palms. “Are you alright?”  
  


“I am,” he says, giving her a weak smile. “Just a little roughed up. A little embarrassed.”

  
“Is your wrist broken?”  
  


“I don’t think so.”  
  


A weight lifts from her chest and she falls to the blanket alongside him, resting on her elbow. Cassian’s hand curls around waist, his other hand coming to rest on top of the hand she has placed over his heart. “Don’t do that to me again,” she says.  
  


“Is that a command from a queen.”  
  


“You know it’s not. It’s a request from your wife. From your equal.”  
  


Cassian looks at her, and she feels like the only star in the night sky, the one guiding him home. No one has ever looked at her the way he does. She bends now and presses a fevered kiss to his forehead, closing her eyes to feel the peace and quiet of his company.  
  


And then the peace is broken and the secret let out. “Excuse me, highness.” She looks up to see Cassian’s private secretary, Kay staring at them, furrowed brow, nervous eyes. “And excuse me, sir,” Kay says, eyes darting to Cassian. “But exactly when did this,” and Kay gestures at the two of them tangled up together, distress in his voice, “happen?”

 


	6. Fencing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian takes on fencing lessons.

Jyn can see him in the gardens with the fencing instructor, Cassian dressed in full fencing whites, his foil at his side. She wonders if there’s a photographer nearby to capture the image for the papers but maybe she’s just missed the press. Her finger is still pressed into the crease of the book where she had been reading just before she looked outdoors and noticed the action below, but now the book just taps against her leg as her fingers find their way to the glass of the window, small circles being traced in the morning condensation. 

 

He’s a natural, or looks like one at least. She’s learned some self defense herself, mostly just to know since she will never not have security around her, but never swordplay. But it interests her--at least the aesthetic of it does. And so Jyn watches Cassian move in the gray morning, the white flashes of his body stark against the green hedges just behind him. He’s fluid in his movements, his trim body gliding forward and snapping to attack. She doesn’t know how long she watches him but thinks too long when he finally stops and begins to take off his shirt to use the fabric to wipe his brow. The book falls from her hand and Stormy barks behind her.

 

“Stop!” she chides her dog, but it’s more out of embarrassment for herself than anything. Gathering her book and Stormy into her arms, Jyn makes her way back to her room. But when her feet hit the first landing, the oak doors in the foyer below open and Cassian steps in, the instructor behind him. 

 

“Princess!” the instructor says, bowing deeply. Cassian locks eyes with her and only says her name once, his gaze never leaving her, though his hands tighten nervously around the shirt in his hand.

 

With a nod from Cassian, the instructor is on his way, and Jyn remains somehow rooted in her spot as though she is waiting--waiting for him. 

 

“Fencing?” she says at last, and Stormy wriggles out of her arms then and bounces over to Cassian, hopping and panting around his new master’s legs until he gets an ear rub, which Cassian offers with a smile.

 

“It was suggested to me that I pick up a pursuit befitting a prince,” he says wryly.

 

“Kay?” she asks archly.

 

Cassian smiles. “Who else?” He begins to climb the stairs, and when she can almost feel his nearness, she begins her way up again, Cassian close behind.

 

“Truth be told,” he continues, “part of me always liked playing at pirates.”

 

“Pirates?” she asks, fingers brushing against the smooth wooden bannister. She stops and turns and sees him flicking back a tendril of sweaty hair that’s fallen onto his forehead. “I pegged you more as someone who’d rather be a swashbuckling sailor--a captain in His Majesty’s fleet.”

 

“Perhaps that is true,” he says, “but pirates was more fun as a game.”

 

They’re at their rooms before she realizes it and he bows politely and says, “I wanted to apologize, Jyn.”

 

“For what?”

 

He motions to himself. “For being half dressed when you saw me. But you are my wife after all, and in front of the instructor, it might seem . . . odd if I hurried to put the shirt back on.”

 

“Oh,” she squeaks, face growing hot. “It’s no bother.”

 

“Well,” he says, nodding, and goes into his room where she listens to the door shut with a quiet click. Stormy whines at her feet and looks up at her expectantly.

 

“Don’t start,” she says, but then, as she shuts the door to her own room and leans against it, hand pressed against her heart, she’s beginning to suspect that things may have already started long before she realized that it had.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at @operaticspacetrash


End file.
